Principal Investigator(s):
United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics

Summary:

This data collection provides comprehensive criminal history
data on prisoners released from custody in 1983. Precise estimates are
supplied on recidivism among prisoners of all ages with all types of
postrelease supervision. Data cover recidivism both within and outside
the states in which the prisoners were released. Variables include
sociodemographic indices, type of sentence, length of sentence, offense,
court action, and date of court action.

This data collection provides comprehensive criminal history
data on prisoners released from custody in 1983. Precise estimates are
supplied on recidivism among prisoners of all ages with all types of
postrelease supervision. Data cover recidivism both within and outside
the states in which the prisoners were released. Variables include
sociodemographic indices, type of sentence, length of sentence, offense,
court action, and date of court action.

Guidelines for Applying for Restricted Data

Before you begin an application you will need the following information to complete the form

General Requirements:

appointment at research institution; appointment must be under the jurisdiction of the receiving institution

degree requirements (possibly doctorate)

Must be submitted:

project description

IRB approval

approved security plan

roster of research and IT staff who can access or view the data or computer where data are hosted.

confidentiality pledges for all people on roster

Some require:

CV's

Access to these data is restricted. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.

Any public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public.
Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

Dataset(s)

Study Description

Citation

United States Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Recidivism Among Released Prisoners, 1983: [United States] . ICPSR08875-v3. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2011-03-08. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08875.v3

Scope of Study

Universe:
Prisoners released from prisons in California, Florida,
Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina,
Ohio, Oregon, and Texas in 1983.

Data Type(s):
survey data, and event/transaction data

Data Collection Notes:

This dataset has five groups of data at two levels. The
first level (group 1, with 16,355 records and 71 variables) is an
Identification and Corrections record, containing information about the
individual offender. The second level (groups 2 through 5) consists of
combinations of records that contain information about the offender
based on one or more "cycles" or "events." Cycles consist of information
on arrest (group 2, with 126,620 records and 59 variables), judicial
(group 3, with 84,741 records and 123 variables), and custody or other
post-sentencing information (group 4, with 35,337 records and 149
variables), and may not have all three segments, depending on the
completeness of the information available from individual states. Events
(group 5, with 36,844 records and 144 variables) represent unique
transactions and consist of arrest, entry to jail or prison, military,
or other non-criminal information. Cycles and events may be logically
related, and they are ordered chronologically, from earliest arrest to
the most recent.

Methodology

Sample:
Systematic stratified sample.

Data Source:

automated and non-automated criminal history files

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Created variable labels and/or value labels.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release: 1989-09-26

Version History:

2011-03-08 All parts are being moved to restricted access and will be available only using the restricted access procedures.

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